


And In His Wake, Death

by Morgyn Leri (morgynleri)



Series: Mistress to Queen [2]
Category: 15th Century CE RPF, Henry V - Shakespeare
Genre: Alternate Universe, GFY, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-26
Updated: 2011-11-26
Packaged: 2017-10-26 13:23:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/283676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morgynleri/pseuds/Morgyn%20Leri
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Above the battle, a herald watches for princes and kings alike.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And In His Wake, Death

**Author's Note:**

> A companion ficlet to [Admit Me, Chorus To This History](http://archiveofourown.org/works/259203/).

Men and horses, cloyed with sticky mud, fight and die below his position, where he watches and marks the outcome. He tracks banners in the weak sunlight that filters through the cloud cover, tracing the movement of princes and a king. One prince has no banner, and for that stalwart child he worries - though he'll not let such a concern show, lest he be called traitor for it. The king, too, he has some concern for, but that thought is more ruthlessly suppressed than the other, for he'll not have his heart so deeply betray his own beloved king.

There, the Constable's banner, stilled where its master has fallen, for d'Albret is not a man to surrender. Another of their commanders gone, the tide of battle turning to the English as inexorably as the roar of arrow-fall bringing death to those beneath it. Along the high ground, the last battle waits, a band of French cavalry with no one to command them, with all those who might having taken to the vanguard that they might attain glory in slaughtering the English peasants.

No glory now, even for the victors in their bloody armor, as archers take charge of those brought captive to the edge of the field. And there among the rest is a surcoat just visible from his vantage which has picked out upon it the arms of the young prince. Safe, then, and alive, as is his father below his banner, and his treacherous heart beats a little easier.

Yet still he has his worry for those who wait on proud horses above the field, not yet following their fellows into the choking death drowned in mud and hacked by peasants. Indeed, he hopes they shall not, for there is enough of the flower of French youth scattered there, too still in their once-gleaming armor.

His heart beats heavier when they do turn away, yielding the field as he must now yield the day, though he finds it easier to breathe, that there will be no more death. Princes have fallen, the battle is done, and he picks his way down to offer surrender to an enemy king that he respects too much. To sue for terms of surrender will be too much, but to negotiate the ransoms for those who shall go captive to England, that he must do.


End file.
